"No, Anna! Not to help is to help." X One afternoon late in the autumn of the following year, when a waiting stillness lay on the land and shimmering sunlight opened up the lonely spaces of woods and fields, the Reaper who comes to all men and reaps what they have sown, approached the home of the Merediths and announced his arrival to the young master of the house: he would await his pleasure. Rowan had been sitting up, propped by his pillows. It was the room of his grandfather as it had been that of the man preceding; the bed had been their bed; and the first to place it where it stood may have had in mind a large window, through which as he woke from his nightly sleep he might look far out upon the land, upon rolling stately acres. Rowan looked out now: past the evergreens just outside to the shining lawn beyond; and farther away, upon fields of brown shocks--guiltless harvest; then toward a pasture on the horizon. He could see his cattle winding slowly along the edge of a russet woodland on which the slanting sunlight fell. Against the blue sky in the silvery air a few crows were flying: all went in the same direction but each went without companions. He watched their wings curiously with lonely, following eyes. Whither home passed they? And by whose summons? And with what guidance? A deep yearning stirred him, and he summoned his wife and the nurse with his infant son. He greeted her; then raising himself on one elbow and leaning over the edge of the bed, he looked a long time at the boy slumbering on the nurse's lap. The lesson of his brief span of years gathered into his gaze. "Life of my life," he said, with that lesson on his lips, "sign of my love, of what was best in me, this is my prayer for you: may you find one to love you such as your father found; when you come to ask her to unite her life with yours, may you be prepared to tell her the truth about yourself, and have nothing to tell that would break her heart and break the hearts of others. May it be said of you that you are a better man than your father." He had the child lifted and he kissed his forehead and his eyes. "By the purity of your own life guard the purity of your sons for the long honor of our manhood." Then he made a sign that the nurse should withdraw. When she had withdrawn, he put his face down on the edge of the pillow where his wife knelt, her face hidden. His hair fell over and mingled with her hair. He passed his arm around her neck and held her close.